Friday, March 12, 2004

According to this article by Angus Shaw in Harare, the Zimbabwe government is accusing the US, UK, and Spain of sponsoring mercenaries to participate in a coup to overthrow oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. CNN's story adds a bit more detail, including that the plane was hired in relation to an operation in the Congo:

The Harare plane's operator, based in Britain's Channel Islands, said the aircraft, sold by Kansas-based firm Dodson Aviation in the United States just a week ago, had been flying security men from South Africa to guard mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It declined to name the customers it was acting for.

As I've written about at length in the past, the CIA has long had interests in the mineral rich lands of the Congo. Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said, "Apparently this was not one mission ... after the diversion in Equatorial Guinea they were going to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo)."

Once again, we see the ongoing thread of regime change as the core characteristic of our foreign policy under George Bush.